


Young Folks

by guineapiggie



Series: The High-School AU [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, F/M, First Time, Meeting the Parents, Mild Language, Sequel, it's nothing like me but I love it and I have no regrets, so much fluff and happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2018-09-24 05:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9704864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: Sequel to "A Little Hope"Erso nods, slowly, eyes his wine glass. “So,” he says after a while, without hurry, looking up at him. “You are sleeping with my daughter.”Cassian blinks, once, twice. He must have heard that wrong. Hemusthave. “I’m sorry, sir?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randomdreamer01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomdreamer01/gifts).



 

“How can someone be so good at math and so bad at physics?” Bodhi asks, shaking his head, and reaches over the table to fish a pen out of Kay’s pencil case. “And how do you _not_ realise your stone is falling _towards_ the sky? You even wrote free _fall_ over the diagram, Cassian!”

Kay rolls his eyes and leans his head against the warm brick wall. “Three guesses who was sitting next to you when that happened.”

“Shut up,” Cassian says in a friendly tone without raising his eyes from the sheet of paper filled with Kay’s narrow, tiny handwriting. “Can we agree that you make a full stop at least every five lines, Kay? Seriously, it’s not a competition for the longest sentence, and how do you manage to use so many commas?”

Kay raises a brow and snatches the sheet out of his hands. “Well, if punctuation is my only problem, I guess I’ll be alright.”

“I don’t know why you force me to read these. You already know your grammar is better than mine, in _both_ languages,” Cassian mutters and reaches into his bag for a bottle of water.

“I’m keeping you busy so you don’t have to stare into the void so much while you sit here with us,” Kay replies drily and Bodhi snorts into his sandwich.

Cassian decides not to dignify that with a response (partly because he probably does have a lot of _absent_ moments lately - it’s not his fault, it’s _her_ fault, entirely hers).

“I guess there’s no point in asking if we’ll go for coffee later?” Bodhi asks and Cassian tries very hard not to hear the lost tone in that – but damn it, he _does_ hear it and he can’t pretend he doesn’t.

They spent half their weekends at Chirrut’s and Baze’s little diner in the last one and a half years, but hand it to Bodhi to think just because Cassian is (for reasons still utterly unclear to him) going out with Jyn Erso for what, three weeks, all that will immediately stop.

Kay looks a little like he’s thinking along the same lines, and replies: “Well, I’ll be there. If my company suffices.”

Cassian rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, guys. Don’t be so melodramatic. I absolutely have time for coffee.”

Kay frowns. “You said you were at Jyn’s this afternoon.”

“ _After_ noon. We get out of here at eleven thirty, Kay.”

“So does Jyn,” Bodhi replies slowly.

“You’re _talking_ about me.”

Cassian is slightly startled at that voice, and doesn’t even get the chance to turn around before there’s a hand on his shoulder. Damn it, that girl does thread lightly.

“No. We’re not,” he says hastily and throws Kay a quick warning glance. Jyn raises a brow and smirks down at him.

“We were wondering whether he’ll be free for coffee after school,” Bodhi explains and Cassian smiles a little – unsurprisingly, really, out of his two friends shy soft-spoken Bodhi has warmed up to Jyn first, very quickly, in fact, once he’d realised Cassian _really_ couldn’t care less about what she’d said or not said about him to some girl he didn’t care to get to know.

“You don’t have to _ask_ me, Bodhi, I’m not his _mother_ ,” she says with a grimace, sits down on the bench next to Cassian. “What is that I see? Are you _actually_ doing homework?”

“I’m offended,” Cassian gives back and shakes his head. “Deeply.”

“Yes, me too,” Kay says flatly and pockets his essay, “Cassian is the only one out of the three of us with that unfortunate habit of coming to class like he only just learned he signed up for it.”

“Again, _offended._ ”

Jyn rolls her eyes. “So you’ve written that essay on Napoleon, then?”

“Are you _sure_ you’re not my mother?” he gives back with a slight smile and she raises a brow and says, in a voice that makes his skin tingle:

“It would be a bit worrying if you couldn’t tell the difference.”

He can’t hold her gaze, not here – it does things to him. He shakes his head and casts his eyes down at the table instead, and Kay groans.

“God, you’re disgusting. I’m leaving. I’ll see you after English,” he declares and gets to his feet. “Come on, Bodhi.”

“You don’t have to –“ Cassian says quickly, but Bodhi grins a little, gets up with some vague excuse about a lab coat and follows Kay down the lawn.

“He hates me, doesn’t he?” Jyn says, looking after them, and clearly tries not to look bothered.

“What, Kay? No, he doesn’t. Actually, I think he likes you.”

Green eyes flash up at him. “Oh, this is him _liking_ me? What’s he like when he _doesn’t_ like people?”

“He ignores them,” Cassian answers with a little shrug and pushes a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “The whining is strictly reserved for people he cares about.”

“D’you think we can train him to be, you know, a little nice? Sometimes?” she asks with a grin and leans her head against his shoulder, blinking into the sunlight.

Cassian laughs and shakes his head. “No. We definitely can’t.”

“Shame,” she says drily. “How was your weekend?”

He scoffs and winds an arm around her, pulling her closer (he still can’t quite believe she is actually letting him do any of this). “Exciting. I painted my aunt’s fence.”

“ _All_ weekend?” she asks with a laugh, and he grins.

“No, I was at Kay’s yesterday. But it took the whole damn Saturday. You’ve seen the place.”

“Beats carrying physics textbooks all Sunday. I had to help my father declutter his office at the university. And… you know, it kind of sounds like your aunt took you in so she’d have a janitor.”

“She _could’ve_ left me in an orphanage, Jyn. She’s very nice, you _met_ her –“

“Yes. _Once._ And I’ve been at the place, what – four times?”

“Three times,” he corrects softly, “and Alejandra just works late. She’s a lawyer, and you know, she wasn’t exactly building her life around fostering a teenager.”

“Okay, go easy,” she mutters into his shoulder, smiling a little. “I’m just saying, this time it was the fence, last time it was the garden, the time before –“

“She doesn’t tell me to do that,” he says, when it’s dawning on him where she’s getting at. “It’s just, well… at some point, you’ve said _thank you_ too often for it to mean anything.”

She glances up at him and something softens in her green eyes. “I don’t think she’d ask you to thank her, Cassian,” she says quietly and presses his arm.

“Yeah, I know. I want to.”

“Okay,” she mutters, and kisses him, _out in the fucking open_ like she doesn’t care half the school can see them – because she doesn’t, and he’s still trying to wrap his head around that.

She gets to her feet with tiny smile and adds, in an offhanded voice while gathering her things: “Oh, papa asked if you want to stay for dinner tonight.”

He is still in no fit state to process something like this. This isn’t _fair._ “What?”

“Well,” she says, frowning a little at his reaction, “your aunt is out of town, and he thought you might want to eat with us. So you don’t have to eat alone.”

That is most definitely _not_ the motivation behind this. Galen Erso might be a fairly laid-back person from what he’s heard so far, but he is also the father of a sixteen year-old daughter and Cassian knows _exactly_ where this is going, even though Jyn seems to be blissfully oblivious to it.

“Sure. Thanks,” he says, an iota too slowly. “I’d love to.”

She turns back around and scrutinises him for a moment, then shakes her head, smiling a little. “No, you’re doing the thing. You’re lying.”

“No, I’m – I’m doing _the thing_? What does that mean?”

Jyn laughs and waves her hand about a little. “You get a look that’s just _so_ inconspicuous –“

Cassian frowns down at her. “So if I look innocent, I must be lying?”

“No, it’s… it’s not really that. It’s just, you have this way of looking at me, and when you’re lying, you stop doing it.” She flashes him a sly grin and then gives a dramatic sigh. “Damn it, I should’ve told you that _after_ making you play poker with me.”

He catches himself just a little. “Really, you were going to rip me off? You’re the one with the never-ending inflow of cash, Jyn.”

She rolls her eyes and nudges him in the side gently. “Yeah. I would’ve picked you clean. I’m merciless. You don’t know me.”

He chuckles. “Okay. But, back to the thing – what do you mean, I have a way of looking at you?”

“I don’t… I can’t describe it.” She bites her lip, but it doesn’t quite stop the smile. The sight of it makes something warm and tingly spread in his chest.

“I’ll push you in front of a mirror some time,” she says and pulls him into the classroom.

Kay sits at the back, his books perfectly aligned with the table, and throws them a deeply annoyed look when he sees them come in, her still tugging at his sleeve. Cassian takes his usual place next to him – Bodhi isn’t here, he took a different class – and Jyn sits down at the corner of his desk.

“Kay, do I have a specific way of looking at her?”

Kay stares at him for a moment, then bursts out laughing. “If you… You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not.”

Jyn snickers and hides her face in her hand.

“You’re _actually_ serious?” Kay says in a bone-dry voice. “Well, _yes,_ you do. It’s _blatantly_ obvious, too. You get this deeply distracted, slightly disbelieving…”

“Okay, stop it,” Cassian snaps, slightly flustered despite his best intention. Jyn is still grinning at them both.

“Don’t you have a desk of your own?” Kay asks, sounding almost friendly, and Jyn rolls her eyes at him and walks to her old seat next to one of her _uptown_ friends.

Cassian thinks they might yet bond over something, and unless he’s very lucky, that’ll be making fun of him.

 

* * *

 

“I’m trying to do homework. _Me,_ doing _homework_ ,” he mutters faintly, “you should be _encouraging_ me –“

“I _am_ encouraging you,” she replies, grinning against his lips. “This is encouragement.”

To be fair, he _is_ trying to do homework, and so is she. They got rather far actually, mostly because Jyn is absolutely determined to get him on at least a B in English if only to get back at that ass Krennic, but Cassian’s been brooding over his chapter for psychology for what feels like at least a year and her math homework is boring her to death.

And she feels like she’s already displayed a fair amount of restraint for the day, and anyway she _is_ turning seventeen in a couple of days so she doesn’t quite just have a boyfriend for him to sit on her bed with a book, right?

Besides, there _is_ a certain look he gets on his face when he looks at her, and hilarious as it is that even Kay sees it – _and_ Bodhi, Kay repeated Cassian’s question to him when they went out for coffee, mercifully letting Jyn tag along, and Bodhi too came up with a very colourful description.

Still, hilarious as that was, and as adorable as it is, Jyn personally prefers the way he’s looking at her right now, the look on his face right before he kisses her.

“This is distraction.” His voice is just a touch off – she’s never seen him drunk, but this might be like it.

“Oh, I see,” she mutters, still smiling, and doesn’t move an inch. “Okay. So you want me to stop?”

His eyes look just a little bit darker, and there’s a slow smile tugging at his lips. “No, that’s not what I said,” he replies, _finally_ puts the book to the side – too close to the edge of the mattress, so when he pulls her on his lap it clatters to the floor. Neither one of them pays any attention to it.

His fingers tangle in her hair, her scalp prickles where they touch, and she wonders if this will stop to make her heart race this way eventually. She really hopes it won’t.

She hopes the fact she can make his breath hitch like that won’t stop to make her ridiculously proud anytime soon.

“Okay,” he mutters against her lips, very breathless, which makes her smile, and gently pushes her off him just a few inches. “Okay, time-out.”

She raises a brow. “Time-out?”

“Uh-huh,” he leans his head against the wall, “give me a minute.”

“To what?”

He grimaces and glances up at her. “You really have to ask?”

“Yes,” she replies slowly. “We’re alone.”

Cassian chuckles and shakes his head. “Your father is about to come home any moment, bringing dinner. For us. He could come in here at any moment.”

He eyes her, still with that exasperated, fond smile on his lips, and she can’t make sense of any of it.

“Okay,” she says slowly, scrutinising him, “what excuse would you’ve told me if papa wasn’t here?”

He shrugs a little. “Don’t know. I’d have found something.”

She’s surprised, pleasantly, that he doesn’t try to lie. “Do I get to ask why?”

Cassian smiles and avoids her eyes, pulling her a little closer. “You know,” he mutters, absent-mindedly wrapping a strand of hair around his finger, “the thing about avoiding pressure is you get used to it, and then it’s hard to stop.”

“Pressure?” she replies, smiling a little against her will. “Seriously?”

“I know you’re very clever, and very good at pretending to be someone you aren’t, but I’m not stupid either, Jyn,” he says gently. “You were, what, fourteen when your mother died? And after that, you were part of the saints club. They shunned you just for _talking_ to me, so I doubt you’d have done much else than let a few nice uptown kids take you to a few safe parties, look pretty on their arm. Kissing them already made you the bad girl of the group. I did notice what happened when people saw you kissing me, you know? I’m not blind. They’re still treating you like you’re contagious or something.”

She sighs. It’s almost embarrassing to realise how easy it is for him to know things about her life when for the last one and a half years, he did nothing but occasionally see her from afar.

“I’m not wrong, am I?”

“No. You’re not,” she mutters, settling back against his side and linking her fingers with his. “So, are you telling me you’re trying not to _damage_ my reputation?” she asks with a derisive little laugh. “Because whatever reputation I had with those girls is already absolutely fucked, and good riddance, too. And in case you’ve forgotten, they think I’ve been sleeping with you since before we went out for that movie.”

He grins a little. “Yes, I’m still trying to figure out whether I should be flattered or insulted that they think the only reason you’d talk to me is sex.”

Jyn laughs a little and leans her head against his shoulder. “Probably flattered? I mean, that idea has to come from somewhere, right?”

He tugs her closer and chuckles. “Right. I take it I shouldn’t be _too_ flattered.”

She throws him dark sideward glance that’s only half in jest. “That would be smart of you.”

He runs his fingers through her hair and sighs. “And I wasn’t really all that worried about our reputation at a place we’re going to leave in a couple of months.”

“Then what?”

“More selfish than that,” he replies, inspecting his feet.

She eyes him for a while and it takes her a little too long to get what he’s playing at.

“I’m gonna need you to spell that out for me.”

He shrugs. “It’s a choice you make, right? I mean, you pick someone, for a certain reason. It’s a... what’s the term, a special... special occasion. I don’t feel like the kind of person that someone like you would pick.”

Huh. She thought this would be stressful for _her._ She thought this was a decision she made and that would have influence on _her_ life – without intending to be a dramatic teenage girl – but she honestly didn’t realise it would mean anything to him, beyond the obvious. In fact, she thought it was a drawback for him or something, because well, she has little to no idea of any of it –

Looks like she wasn’t quite right.

“Someone like me?” she repeats softly.

“Someone... who gives things like that a lot of thought.”

“I don’t do that.”

He grimaces. “Not deliberately. But you’re raised that way, that it’s a special thing, that if you’re a good kid you don’t do this lightly.”

“And you weren’t?”

Cassian shrugs. “I had mostly older friends growing up. Like, five, seven years older. For them, it was no big deal, never really much of a topic, and me having sex was something of a running gag for them. Actually, I think they probably bet on it.”

She’s quiet for a while and presses his fingers. “Who was it?”

“Uh, friend of a friend. Juana, I think, she was, uh, eighteen or something. A month or two before I left Mexico. It’s... a little hazy, there was alcohol, a lot of it,” he mutters with a small laugh. “Some kind of party at one of my friend’s house, it was really late. My grandparents grounded me for a week because I didn’t come home until seven the next morning, still pretty drunk.” He pauses, then adds: “I don’t mean to make it sound like like anything bad happened. She was very nice, I met her a couple of times after that. I just don’t remember much of it, and I didn’t know her, never really got to know her after. Never bothered me, but... it would bother you. Right?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. “I don’t suppose it would be the end of the world. Besides... I do know you a little, you know? And far as I know, I’m not prone to drinking myself delirious.” She turns to him with a small smile and adds, half-joking: “And I didn’t know you were.”

"I was leaving. I thought I'd miss all that or something, so I... tried everything I thought I should." He chuckles a little. “Besides, I don’t see myself binge drinking with Bodhi and Kay, do you?”

Jyn smiles a bit. “You’re trying to distract me. Which part of your story relates to me?”

“I don’t want you to...,” he frowns a little, then continues haltingly: “To think you did it because you felt like you had to.”

“That’s... very noble, and only a little overly dramatic,” Jyn says with a slight smile and pulls him down to kiss him. “Do you ever consider you might be overthinking the whole thing? Just a little?”

“At the risk of coming off as condescending, no,” he says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Jyn, I’m just trying to give it a little more time, that’s all. We _have_ time, you know?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but doesn’t get anywhere before there’s a knock on the door making them both jump.

“Jyn? Dinner’s arrived."


	2. Chapter 2

“I just realised this is going to be awkward,“ Jyn mutters, curling her fingers around the doorframe, and Cassian throws her a pointed look.

“Well, better late than never,” he replies in a voice dry enough to make Kay proud, and buries his hands in his pockets. Jyn tries hard to figure out if she’s more anxious about that dinner or more amused by the look on his face, and decides she can’t tell for the life of her.

He reaches out and smoothens her hair with a slightly forced smile.

“Thanks,” she gives back with an eye roll that probably doesn’t mask the fact that she’s actually _blushing,_ and makes her way downstairs, telling herself she has nothing to feel awkward about. Her father is probably one of the coolest dads she knows, and he’s never been petty over anything other than her English teacher – and Orson Krennic most definitely _started_ being creepy and petty, so she can’t fault her father for that either.

He’s never forbidden her a thing in her life as far as she can remember, and then there’s the fact he was the one who told her to do what she wanted to where Cassian was concerned in the first place, so why should he suddenly have any kind of problem with it?

“Papa?” She finds him in the kitchen, stirring vinaigrette in a glass and smiling at her.

“Sorry, stardust,” he mutters and gives her a kiss on the cheek, “I was kept at the lab, but I brought Chinese if that’s alright?”

“Sure,” she replies with a shrug and glances over her shoulder at Cassian loitering in the doorway. “Um, well, Cassian – my dad,” she mutters, waving from one to the other – oh _God,_ this is the worst thing she’s _ever_ done – and Cassian puts a smile on his face and pushes off the wall.

“Good evening.”

Galen turns to him, still smiling, but there’s something withering about his sharp eyes that probably takes some getting used to.

Cassian looks back, unmoved, and she’s not sure how aggressive that might look to her father.

“Evening,” papa says lightly, already turning away, and waves towards the table. “Well, sit down. Jyn, would you-,” he presses the take-out boxes into her hands and nudges her towards the table. Then he frowns a little and adds toward Cassian, without really _looking_ at him, though: “Oh, um, you’re not a vegetarian, are you? Because I think there’s pork in one of those, and I’ve... I’ve absolutely forgotten which.”

Cassian gives a fleeting smile and shakes his head. “No, I’m good with that.”

Jyn hands him a handful of cutlery and gets glasses, seizing the chance to divert his attention. “Papa? Wine?”

“Yes, please,” Galen mutters, fiddling with his phone. “For you, Cassian?”

Her brows dart up and she freezes halfway through taking the wine glass out of the cupboard. That’s a test, a bit of a sloppy one at that, but...

“Can I have a glass of water, please?”

 _Smooth,_ she thinks. Cassian most definitely sensed that trap but side-stepped it expertly. She’s almost impressed.

She grins at him in passing and sits down next to him and realises, for the first time, that their kitchen table is really a little small for more than two people – she can feel Cassian stiffly hovering at the edge of his chair to avoid touching her arm.

She reaches for one of the boxes and pokes around in it. “Um… noodles, chicken, peanut sauce. Anyone want some? Speak now or I'll eat it.”

“No, I brought rice, I want that, please,” Galen says, hands out bowls full of salad and sits down. Her mother used to make colourful salad with ten different things in it. Papa makes salad, period; just lettuce and vinaigrette, and some onion in that if he’s feeling fancy.

 She hands him his box and turns to Cassian who’s still sitting just a little too stiffly on his chair, right shoulder braced against the wall. “Rice or noodles?”

“Rice, please,” he mutters.

“You sure? This is great, you should try it.”

“Later,” he answers and takes the other box. “Thanks.”

Her father upturns his own box onto his plate and takes a forkful of salad. “There’s a small town in Italy called Saint Cassian, we went skiing there a couple of years ago, remember, Jyn?”

“Right,” she mutters, frowning a little. “I forgot about that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a Catholic martyr or something.” Cassian shrugs, jabbing his fork at his rice. “My grandmother picked that name. It’s a patron saint of Mexico City. According to her, anyway.”

“That’s kind of cool.”

He smiles a little at her comment, but there’s a glint in his eyes that is sad. “She picked it for luck, which I guess didn’t work out so well... but it’s kind of nice, like having a piece of home.”

“Your parents are still in Mexico, then?”

Her breath catches. _Shit._ “Papa –“

Cassian’s knee presses against hers underneath the table to cut her off, and something twitches around his lips that might be a smile if it lasted a little longer. It’s nothing he can’t handle, she knows that – she just feels stupid. She could have prevented this, damn it.

“They died in a car crash when I was eight.”

Her father has the decency to look a little shocked. “I’m sorry.”

“Long time ago,” he replies with a shrug, voice even in a way Jyn recognises. Trained.

She returns the pressure against his knee. If they were at school, she could just put her knife down and take his hand, but –

“You lived with your aunt since?” Galen asks carefully.

“No, I came here when I was seventeen. My grandparents raised me, but... my grandfather is getting ill, he’s old, and my grandmother couldn’t take care of both of us. Alejandra offered to let me stay, finish High School in the US. Better chances and all.”

“Can’t have been easy, going to school in a foreign country.”

“I doubled back a year. In Mexico, I’d already be working somewhere,” Cassian replies, still perfectly indifferent. “Alejandra thought it would help to give me an extra year.”

“Did it help?”

“I suppose it has,” he says with a shrug. “I mean, I did have better grades once, but –“

“Yeah, that’s because Krennic’s a racist asshole.”

“Jyn,” Galen says mildly, the hint of a grin tugging at his lips.

“What, it’s true!”

Cassian smiles and says drily: “No, it’s because I can’t interpret literature for shi - Sorry,” he adds quickly towards Galen without missing a beat.

A small smile twitches around the corners of her father’s lips – an unwilling feeling of camaraderie with someone else who can’t get the hang of literary studies, Jyn suspects. “That doesn’t sound like you’re joining my daughter for literature courses in college, then.”

“Papa, can you _stop_ interrogating everyone about college?” she mutters. “We have another _three months_ until graduation.”

Galen shrugs. “Exactly, which is why I thought college to be an easy conversation topic.”

“I’d like to go to law school,” Cassian replies. “But I don’t think I’ll have the grades to do it here.”

“Law school,” her father repeats, nodding. “So you plan to go back home after graduation?”

Cassian shrugs. “At least for university, yes. But maybe I will work first. The money might be better here.”

Jyn sighs, knee still pressed against his, and picks at her noodles.

“We got the history test back,” she says flatly, desperate to change the topic.

“How did it go?”

“Pretty good,” Jyn mutters, Cassian shrugs. He got a C, and wouldn’t let Jyn argue with the teacher over whether or not it was fair to grade a foreign student down for a handful of spelling mistakes. “How did that experiment go? The one your grad student wanted to do?”

“Not at all,” her father replies with a smile. “They have to readjust the laser again.”

“Wasn’t that thing constantly broken when you needed it?”

He shrugs. “They’re very sensitive instruments. And, well, it’s not like they’re in mass production, that thing is a prototype. Those contraptions have all kinds of flaws, stupid things, really. Sometimes you’d think they’re obvious but… well, we’re not engineers.”

She smiles faintly and prods at her noodles, wracking her brain for some other innocent topic. Going by the shifting on the chair next to her, Cassian is doing the same.

Her father still has that faint smile on his face.

She has the sneaking suspicion he is enjoying himself tremendously.

 

* * *

 

 

“Be right back,” Jyn mutters and gets to her feet. Cassian glances at her and she throws him a terse smile.

He doesn’t quite trust the peace; even though Galen Erso is making pleasant conversation, a part of him feels like he’s being interrogated by a cop.

Galen swirls the wine in his glass and eyes him as his daughter leaves.

“Remind me, please, how old are you?”

“Eighteen,” he answers, somehow nervous about that answer even though, well, it’s the truth.

Erso nods, slowly, eyes his wine glass. “So,” he says after a while, without hurry, looking up at him. “You are sleeping with my daughter.”

Cassian blinks, once, twice. He must have heard that wrong. He _must_ have. “I’m sorry, sir?”

Erso’s face doesn’t betray anything. “Is it not the same expression in Spanish?” he asks pleasantly. “You are having sex with my daughter. I’d just like the cards on the table here.”

Cassian isn’t unaccustomed to bluntness, especially not on this topic – has grown up with it, actually; his friends used to have a laugh about embarrassing him with it until he learned to let it bounce off him. It’s just that he was not expecting it from an internationally renowned physicist who wears soft knitted cardigans and doesn’t iron his shirts. He wasn’t expecting it from a man who serves his daughter’s new boyfriend Chinese takeaway and sloppily tries to bait him into accepting alcohol, who hangs pictures of his late wife in every room of the house but can’t look directly at them after over two years.

“I… no,” he says, but with so long a pause he’s not very surprised when Galen sighs, puts his glass down and says drily:

“You know, it might be hard to imagine, but I was eighteen once, Cassian. So, well… I’m not convinced.”

Cassian takes in the man in front of him for a moment, then decides to take a bit of a gamble. He’s not sure what _exactly_ Erso is trying to accomplish, but he seems to enjoy making him feel uncomfortable, and he’s not about to give him the satisfaction forever. He can be blunt, too.

“You asked if we _have_ sex, not if I want to, sir.”

For a moment, a slightly surprised smile pulls at the corners of the physicist’s mouth, then, fixing him with green eyes just like his daughter’s, he goes on in a low voice that for the first time betrays a faint accent: “You see, Jyn is all I have left, my only family, and I would do anything to keep her from harm. I’m sure you understand that. She hasn’t had it easy in the last few years. She’s lonely, somewhat vulnerable, and well, anyway, girls her age often…”

“Get exploited,” Cassian supplies slowly, and Galen nods.

“I won’t let her get hurt.”

“Of course not,” Cassian answers softly. “I know that.”

He wouldn’t either, but it’d be a pathetic thing to say, and Erso probably wouldn’t believe he means that, anyway.

“Good.” Erso sighs and picks up his glass again, sharp eyes flickering away. “I’m very sorry about your parents, Cassian. That was tactless of me.”

“You didn’t know.” He hesitates, then asks slowly: “Can I – What happened to your wife? I just know that she, uh… passed.”

Erso takes a slow breath. “She had a heart attack. Probably an undiagnosed heart problem, the doctors said.”

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, then adds slowly: “I didn’t want to ask her, I didn’t know… didn’t know how.”

“Don’t talk about it, it… It was very hard on her,” Erso replies in a quiet voice that betrays a lot more insecurity than he is letting on. “Sometimes I’m not sure if she’s coping with it.”

Cassian scoffs, eyes flickering towards the black-and-white photograph on the wall to his right. “Well, are you?” he asks flatly, and Erso sighs.

“Probably not.”

Cassian returns his eyes to his plate and takes a forkful of rice. “This is good.”

To his slight surprise, Erso laughs. “Yes, well, I’m sorry. I usually cook for my guests.”

 _Usually._ Cassian raises a brow. “Point taken.”

“I got held up in a lecture,” Erso says mildly and Cassian returns his smile.

This man is a terrible liar. Thirty minutes ago, he told them he was kept at the lab.

“Oh. Of course,” he says simply, and Erso looks at him like he knows Cassian doesn’t believe him. Good. Two can play his game, and he doesn’t think there is any chance of Erso actually _liking_ his daughter’s first boyfriend either way, so he might as well stand his ground.

Jyn returns and slides back into her seat. “Please tell me neither of you did anything stupid while I was gone.”

Cassian throws her a fleeting smile. “Don’t think so.”

Her father does a less convincing impression of innocence that she either buys or choses to ignore. She raises a brow at her father.

“Nobody was bothered with an unprompted physics lecture?”

“I restrained myself,” Galen answers drily and Cassian smiles.

“A friend of mine gave me one of your papers a few weeks ago,” he says with a grimace. “I got to the fourth paragraph, I think. He tried to explain it to me, but…”

Jyn laughs. “Don’t feel bad, I never get further than that, either.”

“Your friend gave you my paper to read? Someone in your class?”

“Yes, he’s, um… Bodhi was really excited about that article,” Cassian replies with a smile. “Again, I had difficulty understanding what he was talking about exactly, but, um, he loved it.”

Erso smiles faintly. “I’ll admit, I don’t think a lot of high schoolers read my papers.”

He shrugs. “He’s really into physics. Too clever for this school, probably.”

Jyn grins. “Definitely too _good_ for this school.”

Cassian smiles faintly. “He’s not the only one.”

“Shut up,” she mutters, a slight blush creeping up her cheeks, and reaches for her glass. “Bodhi’s a freaking _saint._ ”

“I’ll let him know,” he answers and she glares at him, the smile still twitching around her lips.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Do I know that boy?” Galen asks and Jyn shakes her head.

“Don’t think so, no. He was over once, but, you know… last week, when you were in Vienna.”

“Ah.” He sighs and empties his glass. “Speaking of Vienna, Saul asked about you. He said he could get you an internship or something for the summer, if you wanted to.”

Jyn nods slowly, throwing her father a vague smile, but says nothing.

 _The Summer,_ Cassian thinks wryly. The term is being thrown around by every single adult he’s talked to in the past couple of months, with a fateful kind of ring to it as if it was the most meaningful thing in their lives.

He really doesn’t want to think about it at all, but, of course –

“Have you made plans, Cassian?”

There it is. He sighs. “I’ll have to be home for a while. My grandmother shouldn’t be alone right now, and she could probably use some money, so… I guess I’ll have my old job back for most of the summer.”

“Your old job?”

He shrugs. “Waiter. I did that since I was fifteen or something. Maybe I can work at a better restaurant this time, with my English.”

Jyn prods her noodles with her fork, and he suppresses another sigh. He misses home, he does, but the thought of the summer leaves a bitter taste in his mouth anyway.

(Something tells him missing her will be worse.)

“No travels planned?”

He smiles wryly. “Not unless I win the lottery, sir.”

Erso looks mildly embarrassed, and Cassian can’t help but feel slightly pleased at the sight for just a moment, just because Erso doesn’t _completely_ hold the strings of the conversation.

But Jyn looks increasingly uncomfortable, and he’d be lying if he said he’s having _fun_  – but then again, he doubts fun is the point of this dinner for anyone involved.

He _understands_ why Erso is doing this, he does, and Cassian supposes he has every right to give his daughter’s boyfriend a hard time, try to intimidate him. He’s glad for it, in a way – glad to see how much her father cares about her, how much he’s trying to keep her safe.

That, and it’s probably just some kind of tradition, and enduring this is a very small price to pay.

But still, he supposes he’s allowed the man enough time to probe him, so when Erso offers desert, Cassian declines under pretence of needing to catch a bus. Jyn smiles faintly at that, knowing he’ll probably have to walk most of the way anyway, and almost jumps to her feet with a faint, relieved sigh.

“I’ll get your bag,” she mutters and is out of the room before he can argue.

Galen Erso sighs and gets to his feet as well, eying Cassian with his sharp green eyes.

“If you treat her badly, I’ll know about that,” he says, in almost mild tone.

Cassian returns his look. “I won’t,” he replies evenly. “Thank you for dinner.”

Erso throws him a terse smile and nods. “Anytime. It’s been good to meet you.”

“You too, sir,” he replies, and he means it, despite his fairly uncomfortable evening. Erso seems to pick up on that, because he looks almost surprised.

Cassian throws him a faint smile in return and tags after Jyn without another word.

She pulls him outside onto the porch, out of her father’s view, and leans her head against his shoulder.

“Let’s never do that again,” she mutters into his shirt, dropping his bag onto the floor with a heavy thud, and he grins.

“You weren’t even _there_ for the weird part.”

Her head shoots up so quickly she hits it on his jaw. “What – _ow_ – what did he say? Damn it, I _told_ him to –“

He shakes his head at her and laughs. “It wasn’t so bad – I mean. Well. He’s allowed. You’re his only daughter.”

She huffs in annoyance and glares back at the house for a moment. “Yes, and I’m _almost seventeen,_ Jesus Christ. You’d think you’d asked for my hand or some shit.” She sighs deeply and rises on tip-toe to give him a kiss that takes him by such surprise he almost falls over his backpack.

Her green eyes flicker up at him, soft and warm. “Sorry he asked about –“

“Doesn’t matter.”

“No, I –“

He sighs and attempts a smile. “Really. I’ve explained this for ten years, Jyn. It’s fine.”

She crinkles her nose in disapproval and – God, he could swear he’s never seen anything that cute in his entire life.

“See you tomorrow?”

He makes a half-hearted attempt to wipe the grin off his face and kisses her.

“Yes. Go convince your father I’m not stealing you.”

She throws him a dark look. “Please tell me he didn’t say that.”

“No, he didn’t,” he answers lightly and picks up his backpack.

“You’re lying to me,” she protests faintly and he throws her a smile.

“I’m not. I swear. See you.”

She stands on the porch with her arms crossed, watching him go.

“I can make you tell me, Andor!” she calls after him and he grins to himself.

He doubts she knows just _how_ easy it would be.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe I wrote this, and most of all, I actually kind of like what I wrote? (Admittedly the biggest reason the whole dinner scene is in there is so Kay could get that line, and yeah, they're supposed to be the stereotypical *evil* High School girls. I never claimed to be original)

“Well, you still have a few days, right?”

“Yeah. _Three.”_

“Jesus, Cassian, she’s not your _wife._ She probably doesn’t expect you to get her anything at all,” Alejandra says flatly and returns her attention to the pot on the stove. “Buy her a necklace or something, and how much longer are you going to take with those potatoes?”

He rolls his eyes, finishes peeling the potato in his hand and chops it into bits, catching her dark look at how sloppily he’s going about it. “I can’t give her a necklace because that’d be like asking her to stop wearing her mother’s necklace, Ale.”

“Some other jewellery then.”

He scoffs and adds his potatoes to the stew. “Yeah, like what, a ring? She’s turning _seventeen._ ”

His aunt sighs. “Like _earrings,_ Cassian. You’re putting too much thought into this.”

“Probably,” he replies darkly and gets plates out of the cupboard. Alejandra smirks at him.

“It’s cute. I can tell her how much of a fuss you made –“

“Don’t you _dare._ ”

His aunt is still smiling, but nods. “Okay. She likes to read, so you get her a book. You don’t want it to be too much.”

“She has tons of books. She has a _separate_ _bookshelf_ for her favourite books.”

“Yes. So you get her _your_ favourite book.”

He frowns. “What makes you think she’d like that?”

“She likes _you,”_ she replies patiently, “and you have good taste and she’s learning Spanish.”

Cassian nods, slowly. Now that he thinks about it, he could actually imagine that she’d like the book…

“Okay, I want a glass of wine after all that stress,” Alejandra says with a faint smirk, “and you can have one too if you don’t tell any American I let you have it.”

“Like who, my teachers?” Cassian gives back and she shrugs.

“All I know is that I let it slip to a colleague once that you’ve had some kind of drink with me at some point and he was _outraged,_ and I’m not having that pointless discussion again.” She sighs and get a bottle of red out of a kitchen cupboard. “Does your girlfriend drink?”

Cassian frowns for a moment, then shrugs. “No idea, actually. But I think she said it’s legal to drink beer and stuff at sixteen where her parents come from, so her father probably wouldn’t mind so much if she did that.”

“He’s from Sweden, right?”

“Denmark,” he corrects idly, glancing into the pot as he takes the bottle from her. “D’you think you can save me a bit of that for the weekend?”

Alejandra throws him a shrewd little smile. “Well, not enough for two, and frozen food from your guardian is not how you make an impression, Cassian.”

He rolls his eyes and pours the wine. “Haha.”

The truth is he’d spent every available second with Jyn if he could, and he’d probably try to do just that if he wasn’t so afraid he’d start getting on her nerves – because he is bound to, isn’t he? Even he knows how silly it is, how he’d roll his eyes at anyone else who acted like that…

He _wants_ to spend all weekend with her, even if she decides to revise an entire year’s worth of English classes with him, he’d gladly sit through that however long it took. The thing is just that they’d have the house to themselves, nobody to hear anything, interrupt anything; and that is exactly the kind of situation he’s been avoiding for almost a month. Because the idea of her father walking in on them is more or less the only thing that is still keeping him in check, and if he wouldn’t have that then –

He grips the edge of the table tightly. That is _not_ a good line of thought for dinner with his aunt.

“So, is there a party?” Alejandra dishes out the food, apparently oblivious to his reaction, thank God.

“We have school on Friday, Ale.”

She rolls her eyes. “God, will you live a little? I’d have given you a very responsible speech about that, of course, that you would have ignored like any other eighteen-year-old.”

He grins. “We’re gonna go see a movie with Bodhi and Kay, and a few of her other friends, I think.”

His aunt raises a brow. “That sounds like a really terrible idea.”

“That’s what I said, but she thinks she has to invite them.”

“So they stopped telling stories about her, then?”

Cassian scoffs and stares at his plate. “Oh no, they’re still doing that.” He’s only ever heard snippets of those rumours, but Bodhi has heard more. He refuses to tell either of them what it was about, but since Jyn had to save him from Amber and Violet because he tried to tell them off for it, it’s bound to still be pretty bad.

“And she still wants to invite them?”

He shrugs. He has a vague idea why Jyn still clings to these horrible girls after everything they’ve said about her, but he can already imagine how much of a nightmare that evening might turn out to be.

 

* * *

 

 

The movie goes surprisingly smoothly, for the most part – Amber hated it, which Cassian, Kay and Bodhi silently agree is because she didn’t get the political film Jyn has picked at all – and everything is technically fine for the first twenty minutes they spend at the pizzeria.

(Technically, because Amber still makes what she thinks are cleverly concealed jabs about drug traffic and Violet keeps asking him ever-so-considerately if he’s still managing to follow the conversation, and the smile on his face is starting to hurt and he has take turns kicking Jyn and Bodhi underneath the table to stop them from saying anything. But for now, he’s the only one they’re picking on and he doesn’t care what they think of him, and everyone is eating and nobody is yelling at each other, so he figures everything is technically fine. They’re just going to sit through this.)

But the problem is, it’s still very obvious that not only he and Kay and Bodhi but also Jyn aren’t exactly happy the two other girls are still there, and they’re starting to pick up on it and they’re not taking it well.

Violet, who’s still nibbling at the first piece of pizza, asks if anyone is going away over the weekend - because she knows only her, Amber and Jyn have the money to do that, Cassian suspects. When they’d arrived, she had just been making a big speech about how she hated people who refused to order ‘real food’ when they were out with friends, which had then probably kept her from ordering a salad. Now she seems to have made it her mission to eat as little as humanly possible while staring wistfully at the tiny salad of the lady at the table next to them.

Before either of them is given a chance to answer, thankfully, Amber chimes in. “Ryan wanted to take me to his parents’ lake house.”

“That’s nice of him,” Jyn says stiffly, and Amber scoffs.

“Yeah, right. How nice. We all know what he thinks he’s getting out of that.” She puts up a sugary smile and adds: “I told him no, of course. _I’m_ not that kind of girl.”

Violet smiles.

Cassian takes a deep breath, then another, and throws Bodhi a warning glance. He can see Jyn’s fingers flexing around her knees underneath the table.

“Yes,” Kay says, unexpectedly, and Cassian stares at his friend across the table, trying to get him to shut up, but he just goes on in a perfectly neutral tone: “If you had agreed, it would have irrefutably reflected badly upon your status within your social group, no matter if the action in question had really taken place or not.”

Bodhi, Violet and Amber all gape at him, the latter two in confusion, Bodhi in disbelief. Cassian barely manages to mask his snort with a coughing fit.

Kay earns the first genuine smile Jyn has worn all night.

Bodhi then somehow manages to salvage the next twenty minutes by stirring up a heated discussion about how incompetent the new biology teacher is, and while Cassian is bored half to death, he appreciates every minute that goes by without him wanting to hit something, or more accurately some _one_.

“Speaking of Ryan’s lake house,” Jyn says into the awkward silence that ensues when the topic has finally run dry, “I think I heard my father talk about that once. They rent them out, too, right?”

“Yeah. I heard some lady drowned in the lake a few years back, though,” Amber says in a hushed voice.

“Really?” Violet displays a genuine emotion, to Cassian’s surprise. “Oh my God. That’s horrible. My mum said she maybe wanted to go there for a girl’s weekend with me, but I said I’d rather we do it on my birthday, you know? So we haven’t gone yet, thank God. I mean, last year we went to Europe together and it was so nice, just the two of us in these cute cafés and stuff, and we talked about everything that was like going on with school and guys –“

No, he’s back to wanting to hit someone. Violet keeps prattling on, and Jyn grows more and more still with every word. There’d been a tiny moment this morning just before class, when she told him how her father had tried and failed to bake the muffins her mother used to make for her, where her voice had caught just slightly and –

He doesn’t even believe Violet is doing this on purpose, for once. She’s just forgotten, and that is almost worse.

He wrecks his brain for something, _anything else_ to talk about, but all that comes to mind are all the thing he wants to say to this girl right now. He slowly reaches out to put a hand on Jyn’s knee, but she shrugs him off and gets to her feet.

“Excuse me,” she mutters, heading off towards the restrooms with stiff steps.

Cassian draws a few slow, deliberate breaths, then says very quietly, not looking at anyone: “Just leave. Just go. Both of you.”

“I’m sorry?” Amber simpers, and he turns to face them and says, in the friendliest tone he can muster:

“Fuck off. You’ve done enough. Just go.”

“Or what?” Violet asks, with the confident smile of a rich attorney’s daughter on her lips, and he _swears_ he could punch her and not regret it for a day in his life.

He gets to his feet – to go after Jyn, but judging by Bodhi’s and Violet’s flinching that’s not what that looks like. He doesn’t feel very sorry about the misunderstanding.

“Let’s not find out,” he replies quietly, and has turned his back on them before either one of them musters any kind of reaction.

He finds Jyn leaning against the wall near the restrooms, staring up at the ceiling.

“I’m okay,” she mutters without checking who it is, and he grimaces. _Sure._

“They’re leaving.”

“Okay,” she replies absent-mindedly, still looking up and blinking too much.

She looks so lost, so small against the dirty white wall, and he gets angrier and sadder with every second he looks at her like this. He knows the goddamn feeling, of having a birthday party where there’s always an empty seat in the corner of your eye, always something missing no matter how much everyone around you tries to make up for it. In a way, he guesses he’s the more fortunate; she has so many memories of so many birthdays before her mother passed, and he only remembers two or three.  

“I’m sorry, Jyn,” he whispers and reaches for her hand, waiting for her to bat it away, but she doesn’t; just grips his fingers tightly for a moment.

“I know. Me too.” She nods to herself, takes a deep breath, then lets go of his hand and runs her sleeve over her slightly reddened eyes.

And then, before he has even realised what’s going on, she’s making a beeline for the exit, where Amber and Violet are just putting on their jackets.

He doesn’t get after her fast enough to make out what they’re saying, but judging by the looks on their faces, it’s not anywhere near what they expected to hear. He hovers by his chair, uncertain whether he should go join them or not, until Bodhi says in his quiet voice, very firmly:

“Sit down, Cassian. She’s got it covered.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, and goes back to listlessly jabbing at his food until Jyn drops back into her seat next to his with a sigh.

“I’m really sorry about them,” she says quietly after a moment of silence. “I should’ve known better.”

“I believe they should be sorry, not you,” Kay declares matter-of-factly, seeming genuinely confused about her apology, and Cassian is relieved to see the corners of Jyn’s mouth twitch up ever so slightly.

She looks down at her half-eaten pizza, then shoves it away. “I think I want desert.”

 

* * *

 

“I said I’ve got it from here, Cassian,” she mutters, smiling faintly, and he nods, ignoring the jacket she’s holding out to him, and walks on.

“I’m seventeen, I can make it down two roads from the bus stop on my own.”

“I know you can,” he replies with a shrug and reaches for her hand. “It’s your birthday, though.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Can’t wait for that to be over,” she mutters, then slows her steps and adds very softly: “I’m really sorry for what they said to you –“

“I don’t care what they said, Jyn.”

“But you should, ‘cause I invited them and I knew they’d be like that, so that’s on me and…” She trails off, then resumes in a brittle voice: “I shouldn’t let anyone talk to you like that and most of all I shouldn’t _make_ you put up with people who –“

“It really doesn’t –“ he begins, because it doesn’t matter, for the most part, anyway. It stung, he’ll admit that, but he understands – these girls are part of that persona that kept everything at bay for her for several years, and he can’t expect her to let go of that in a span of a little more than a month. It takes time.

“Stop saying that,” she cuts him off, shaking her head. “It matters. Because you matter to me and I should care more about if you’re okay than about having someone to turn to in case I mess this up and –“

He frowns. “What do you mean, mess this up?”

“I mean I mess things up,” she answers softly, “and I have no idea how to handle any of _this_ , I pull stuff like tonight and I say the wrong things and I... I guess I kept them around so when that happens, there’ll be somebody left, even if they’re… at least I wouldn’t be alone.”

She still looks so _lost,_ even more than she did back at the restaurant, and so scared; and being the cause of that look on her face feels worse than the whole rest of the evening has.

He tries to find words to explain how he virtually cannot even _imagine_ breaking up with her, how he didn’t really feel like this whole thing was her fault until she started saying it was, how _stupidly_ in love with her he is even while she makes all the mistakes he’s already made and clings to the wrong friends and rushes into every decision headfirst and with full commitment and somehow thinks everything is her responsibility; explain all the things it does to him to have her look at him like that, the street light catching ever so slightly in her hair, just bright enough to make out the freckles on her nose – _wearing his jacket,_ for Christ’s sake –

He’s not _that_ good with words.

He shakes his head, buries his fingers in her soft hair. Her lips still taste slightly of coffee and chocolate, and the world around them is so quiet that it’s like it’s barely there at all, and her hot breath and that little moan against his lips when she pulls him closer sends a shiver down his back and he’s done for. Ruined.

(He’s never felt better.)

Her arms wrap around his neck and what little space was left between them melts away and her warmth against him is almost unbearable, her breath going as ragged as his. His knees feel too weak for him to still be standing upright, but he lets his hands travel down to her back to pull her even closer nonetheless. His fingers slip underneath the hem of her shirt quite on their own accord and she draws a sharp breath, teeth scraping against his lip and, _God,_ if they were somewhere, _anywhere_ else he’d –

It’s her that pulls back this time, just enough to rest her forehead against his, eyes closed and out of breath. After a moment, she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair, a slow smile tugging at her red lips. Her eyes are almost black in the light, pupils blown wide, and that look in them does nothing to help him regain his breath or his composure or even his balance.

“I’ll translate that to _apology accepted,_ then,” she mutters, and he laughs a little.

“Yes.”

Her smile widens and she presses her lips to his, innocently almost. “Thank you.”

His hands are still underneath her shirt, splayed out on soft, warm skin, and maybe if he’d take them away he’d be able to think straight, but he doesn’t do that. He caves in.

“You know, we should just… get dinner. Actually be alone for once,” he mutters and she looks up at him, a little surprised, still smiling.

“Absolutely. Takeout on the couch and all.”

He nods. “Alejandra’s out of town. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“You, if you’d let me,” she mutters with a grin and he snorts with laughter, letting his head drop to her shoulder until he’s caught his breath.

“I would,” she repeats, a little louder, laughter tracing through her voice, and he hums in agreement.

He can smell the perfume that she started wearing at some point, can taste it faint and bitter when he presses a kiss to the crook of her neck.

He smiles against her skin, unreasonably proud of the sound he can pull from her when he kisses the spot behind her ear. “Yeah, I’ll let you.”


End file.
